The Stories of a Wife, Mom and Pastor

Budgeting

I have always LOVED money. Do you remember Scrooge McDuck and his giant vault of money that he swims around in?? I always wanted to do that with my money. I was that 12 year old that would bring her piggy bank out into the living room and count out over $500 in front of my brother just to show him all my money. I have always been good with money and going into debt is not something I am cool with (yes we have student loans but that was not a stupid mistake like credit card debt).

So we have been married almost 4 years and I have sucked at getting us on a budget, but we have never missed payments on bills and we have always been able to provide for our family. But I wanted to really see where our money was going and give each of us an allowance to get things we want.

So to the left is the budget I made up (obviously ours has actual numerical amounts higher than zero, and yes there are spelling mistakes because Word doesn’t pick up miss spelled words that are in Caps).

So, it was nice to end in the black when we finished our budget, and we even gave ourselves and the girls a monthly allowance. This money goes towards clothes, coffee, treats and anything else that we want.

Another thing that really helps us with our budget is meal planning. When we do not meal plan we run out to the grocery store multiple times a week and buy whatever. So we have been working on sitting down with the weekly flyer and planning our meals from that. This week we went over our grocery budget by $16 but there were a ton of BOGO which means next week there will be less we need to buy.

We also don’t buy junk food, which really helps keep our bill down. If you live in Canada you understand that groceries are pricey so adding junk food to your cart not only ups your bill it ups your scale.

Another part of our budget that is not in our budget is something that Stefan and I agreed upon when we got married. We decided that if you have an item you no longer wish to own, and you sell it that money is yours to use in whatever way you wish. So this is above and beyond our weekly allowance and that is something we will teach our kids as well. This allows for some extra pocket money and also encourages us to get rid of things we do not use.

A lot of people like the envelope system. I like the idea of it, but I don’t like taking money out of my bank account because you don’t earn interest when it is sitting in your kitchen. So I found this app for my iphone (also on Android and online here). It is an envelope system that you keep track of as you spend money but you get to keep your money in the bank. So far I really like it.